Cat + Pigeons = ?

Well I certainly hope against hope that I am completely wrong about Trump (yeah I know, the notion I might be wrong is almost unimaginable!) but at the very least it is going to be hilarious to behold the Niagara-like cascade of tears from Shelob’s Hillary’s true believers 😆

It will be interesting to see what kind of score settling happens as Trump is said to be a rather vindictive chap. Pass the popcorn.

Given what appear to be record electoral turnouts in places like Florida it looks like those ‘too white, too racist’ Americans who never vote have decided to come out and vote.

Whether they were voting for Trump or against Hillary is unclear, but either way the difference is now immaterial. The era of God-Emperor Trump is at hand and it’s going to be interesting to watch if nothing else.

Time for a bit of Obama vindictiveness by NOT pardoning Hillary Clinton for her crimes.

(To paraphrase Sir Winston Churchill), we may allow ourselves a very short moment of rejoicing. Today is for enjoying the PC meltdown. Today is for savouring that the BBC is mentioning some facts, that (as Brian’s post below notes) many in the UK are hearing for pretty well the first time.

For some on our side, I appreciate, it is ‘eat, drink and be merry today, for tomorrow we die of shame’. For myself, I told my barber yesterday that I’d put a quid on Trump to win (“but I would not bet a large sum”), which is the same I’ve been saying for months. I went to bed at my usual time and slept late. I’ve always known that Yudkowsky was the one smoking something. And I recall defending Palin against commenters who were swallowing the journolista-agreed version of her “rambling” endorsement of Trump.

Although the media version of him was always an imbecile fiction, and although up to a point he clearly has been underestimated by many, I intend to be cautious about some of the praise for Trump we will now hear. As I said when rebutting a particularly egregious piece of anti-Trumpism in the comments of Perry’s last pre-vote post, surely there are enough valid reasons to criticise him.

I’ll give one example. I do not believe Trump is the ‘master communicator’ that Scott Adams claims. When his ego is not involved, he has talent. When it is, he is poor. A true master communicator would have handled the embarrassing ‘October surprise’ vid far better. He would have started by saying “I was a Democrat back then” and gone on to invent the term ‘vice-signaling’ to describe what those who hung with the Clintons had to do to show they were not judgemental, that they did not notice or not mind the immense hypocrisy of Bill and Hillary. Trump never saw how “Bill’s worse” could have been not a counter-attack but woven into the essence of his own defence. This simply never occurred to him because when his ego is involved (and it is large enough to be often involved), he is not a master communicator.

For sure soon to be ex-FBI director Comey is for the high jump, if not prison.I doubt if it will take too much digging to find out how the Hillary campaign got to him with bribes or threats.

The only leftists who really, really, really need to go to Canada, or Mexico, are Bill and Hillary, because the new FBI director and Attorney General are going to fire up some investigations that Comey and the foul Loretta Lynch declined to pursue.

O little town of Dee-Cee,
How still we see thee lie,
Above thy deep, nightmarish sleep,
Clinton’s College falls by,
Yet in the dark streets shineth,
The everlasting Light,
The lies and smears of all the years
Washed off Trump’s back tonight

“The only leftists who really, really, really need to go to Canada, or Mexico, are Bill and Hillary, because the new FBI director and Attorney General are going to fire up some investigations that Comey and the foul Loretta Lynch declined to pursue.”

“The only leftists who really, really, really need to go to Canada, or Mexico, are Bill and Hillary, because the new FBI director and Attorney General are going to fire up some investigations that Comey and the foul Loretta Lynch declined to pursue.”

Big market sell-off yesterday; Dow futures are down sharply today. Smells like a great buying opportunity.

Some enterprising journalist compiled a partial list of all the faux celebrities who promised to leave the country if Trump won. It includes such luminaries as Lena Dunham, Barbra Streisand, Samuel L. Jackson, Miley Cyrus, Amy Schumer and Jon Stewart. We need to hold them to it; the country will be a better place without them. Unfortunately, even a physical move won’t shut them up. But it would be satisfying!

You’ll have a ringside seat, Perry. Enjoy the show, while we enjoy watching Brexit from a safe distance!

Laird – as collateral benefit, if these soi-disant celebrities do in fact decide to ‘move’ to other nations, they will experience the joys of becoming embroiled in the provisions of FATCA, and learn at first hand what a nasty, petty, vindictive bunch of class warriors can achieve when they set their minds to it. Remember – they voted for this. Time for them to get what they voted for, good and hard.

If Barbra Streisand decides to leave, the reduced water consumption from watering the lawns at her estate will make a major dent in California’s drought problem. 😈

No, it will depend on who the Congress will confirm. The fact that it is a Republican-held Congress is not so straightforward as it seems. The House and Senate rules about judicial confirmations have been fluid and changeable and there are longer-term political considerations which make the confirmation of any Justice that Trump cares to nominate by no means the slam-dunk that one would imagine. The Democrats, even though numerically in the minority, will still have the ability to significantly-impact this process, and they will oppose any Trump nomination by any means necessary. And we have seen just how damnably squishy Congressional Republicans get on any serious issue. I do not have near the degree of optimism about the ability of President Trump to steer the direction of the Supremes as many others do.

Personally I would love to see him appoint Newt as Secretary of Education with the mission of abolishing the department before the 2018 mid terms. If Newt could do that Fluffy could promise to make him Secretary of State which is almost certainly the job he craves most.

I’d be surprised if he reneges on his supreme court promise with respect to the vacant seat, as this will presumably have to be one of his first actions (unless Garland inexplicably gets confirmed). For future nominations, who knows what he will do. I suspect he’ll have at least two more nominations, as Kennedy and Ginsburg are 80 and 83 respectively. Thomas is no spring chicken either but could certainly last another decade (another 100 years would suit me fine). So in an ideal world there will be a majority of 2 for the conservative side, at a minimum an evenly divided court, assuming Kennedy and Ginsburg keep going, or they don’t but Trump appoints duds.

And we have seen just how damnably squishy Congressional Republicans get on any serious issue.

One would hope that the GOP having just retained its majority even in the face of the Trump candidacy would firm up a bit, at least in this area. Trump is not a True Believer as far as judicial conservatism goes, and so it is doubtful he will nominate ultra-conservative justices. The GOP ought to be able to muster the will to suppress Democrat obstructionism for nominees that are most likely going to be of the Roberts variety.

It appears, from my limited knowledge, that a pardon can cover all crimes (i.e. acts) up to the point of the pardon, as Ford pardoned Nixon with a blanket pardon. However, a Presidential pardon is only for crimes against the United States, not State law.

The Presidential Pardon is a straight borrow from the British Royal Prerogative of Mercy, as applied under US Common Law and precedent.

“Personally I would love to see him appoint Newt as Secretary of Education with the mission of abolishing the department before the 2018 mid terms. If Newt could do that Fluffy could promise to make him Secretary of State which is almost certainly the job he craves most.”

Pipe dream. They are professional politicians , they don’t close politic shops.

You will be lucky if Trump does not increase stateist power as Obama did.

All of the hopes and dreams that Trump will throw Clinton in prison are silly. He’s not going to do any such thing. In fact, he’ll probably do more to advance the Left’s agenda than Obama has done or that Clinton could have done.

He has a vast number of so-called conservatives (and, sadly, even some libertarians) who worship the ground he walks on. He could walk out tomorrow and say he’s replacing Obamacare with single-payer; and 85% of his supporters will cheer him on for using his “business savvy” and keen intellect to boldly change the course of healthcare for the better. He has the courage to do what no one else could conceive of!

It’s going to be bad. And it’s not so much Trump that will be the cause of it as the teeming masses of true believers who have glommed on to him as a political messiah.

“’I’ll give one example. I do not believe Trump is the ‘master communicator’ that Scott Adams claims.’
Oddly, Mr. Adams doesn’t believe that either.

Master Persuader. Indeed. literally”

Still not convinced. By all accounts, turnout is down. Trump struggled to persuade as many people to vote for him as those losers McCain and Romney did. He’s just lucky that Hillary is even less persuasive.

As I said all along, this was an eminently winnable election for the Republicans, and Trump was the one candidate who might blow it. Well, he didn’t, and, don’t get me wrong, that’s a Very Good Thing Indeed. Clinton would have been awful. But this isn’t a popular uprising; it’s… well, other than the media not seeing it coming, it’s dangerously close to Tony Blair. He won a landslide on fewer votes than his unsuccessful predecessor thanks to a collapse in his opponents’ support, and started believing his own hype, thinking he was popular, that he spoke for The People, riding a wave of their support. I sincerely hope Trump doesn’t make the same mistake. He speaks for a large number of people who’ve been ignored by the political class, that’s certainly true, but he has an awful lot of persuading still to do.

@rfichoke
> He could walk out tomorrow and say he’s replacing Obamacare with single-payer; and 85% of his supporters will cheer him

I think you are wrong. Trump is almost the opposite of a personality cult. People really don’t much care for him personally, but they do care about a few specific things: one, that he is iconoclastic, two his promises on jobs, three his immigration policies, four, his promises on judicial nominations, and five his promise to repeal and replace Obamacare.

Simply speaking he was elected on these issues and on the fact that he isn’t a vile corrupt politician (just a vile man.) I hate politicians, and I might be naive, but I actually think this government is going to change things in a positive way, at least for a while. Repeat of Obamacare and a few good Justices on the USSC would make a YUGE difference. I think there will be a lot of bluster about trade deals but I honestly don’t think he will get much done there.

And he might not do it, and Obama might make it impossible, but frankly the Clinton’s in orange jumpsuits would be a good thing for the country. An aggressive prosecution of corrupt politicians may make future politicians think twice. And Rudy Guiliani is the man to do it.

A lot of the local Republicans I’ve worked with before to further the cause of Liberty have gone glassy-eyed over Trump though. When he went out and defended maternity leave or the Kelo decision, they had all sorts of justifications and dodges. They just don’t want to see him as a bad guy. Maybe that’s just because they were so horrified by Clinton that they were hoping for a savior. I don’t know. But then, isn’t that how dictatorships get started?

As much as he’s reversed himself, I just don’t trust the guy. And from what I’ve heard of his personal business dealings, he has no moral compass. I’m just very worried about him and I’m worried by the rather silly optimism I’m seeing from some quarters. I don’t think people are getting what they think they’re getting with Trump.

Of course in any campaign there are doe eye acolytes, but I am a pretty practical person, and definitely a cut through the bs person. And my view on the matter is quite different. He has made some commitments that people are going to demand he follow through on. At least two of them will make a big difference — better judges and repealing of Obamacare. If that is all he does it is a huge win for liberty. Of course if he screws up trade that is bad, but frankly I don’t think he will be able to do much there. It’ll be him mostly against the congress (all of it.) So he might make some maneuvers, but I don’t think he will be able to really impede trade with China, in particular. Though it wouldn’t surprise me if he doesn’t do some sort of deal to open trade with the new independent Britain.

He also has made some specific promises well within his gift: hiring freeze on federal employees, one new regulation? Cancel two old ones. Send illegal alien lawbreakers home after they do jail time for the crime etc.

I think there is a small chance he can get some of his tax reforms through. A 15% corporate tax rate? That’d be YUGE. It’d mean that I personally would remove the S Corp election on my personal corp. Special repatriation tax of 10%? Irrespective of the revenuse to the treasury, having that money here rather than there is also YUGE.

Again, I could be naive. My expectations are low, though meeting those expectations would make a big difference, however, perhaps my low expectations are still too high when Humphrey Appleby gets hold of Trump.

I am sure all of us here apply our usual, and usually justified, cynicism of politicians to him. And that could be right. But he is truly an outsider, so it’ll be interesting to see how long it takes for the establishment to bring him to heel.

And as I said above, if he can send the Clintons to jail that will be extremely beneficial for the country. Not out of any malice to the Clintons (well deserved though it might be) but simply as a marker to say “corruption in politics has at least an outside chance of ending you in the big house.” I think that would send shivers through the political establishment and make them a little less careless and a little less greedy as they milk the public for their own self enrichment.

But I could be entirely wrong. And he might also fire a nuclear weapon at Paris if a Hollande statement is carelessly translated to suggest his penis is of inadequate length. It is a dice roll.

Fraser, rfichoke can speak for himself – but what I read from his comments was a certain type of a Trump voter, and him saying that those types are bound to be disappointed (that is, of course, being conditioned on them facing the reality of the inevitable gap between their expectations and what their man will actually deliver).

You sound like a different type of a Trump supporter, and I very well realize you are not alone. I also don’t mind keeping an open mind, and sharing in your cautious optimism regarding Trump’s presidency, now that there is nothing I can do about it anyway.

I seriously underestimated just how angry white working class Americans are with the direction of this country.

Regardless of one’s stance on free trade or immigration, it appears that working class people like having jobs. Shocking, I know. Non-college educated whites in particular delivered Trump a spectacular upset victory.

I’m thoroughly enjoying reading the Facebook updates of Progressives on Facebook. They are living a real-life horror, incapable of processing reality, in total shock, many literally crying.

Anyway, this election result is one of the last gasps of white Americans. The long-term trajectory of the United States remains unchanged: bankruptcy, increasingly poisonous politics, and chaos.

But in democracy the great man is stifled by national paralysis almost always. I doubt that Trump will be able to roll back all that much of the Progressive achievements of the past – perhaps a bit here and there on a temporary basis.

But long-term the path America is on is inexorable – and it’s not the path that the white working class voters of Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Ohio should desire.

Donald Trump’s extraordinary talents are about to be squandered on a people incapable of living up to his vision.

Here’s the point most people miss. This election was not about Trump; it was about Hillary Clinton. If Trump is as bad/evil/amoral/whatever as people think, a whole bunch of people said, “Yeah, whatever — but he’s still not as bad as Hillary Clinton.”

My (very conservative) daughter came home yesterday and said, “Okay, I voted. Now I’m going to have a shower.” Guess who she voted for? I suspect a great number of people did precisely the same.

I’m reminded of the Churchill quote: “If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a passing favourable comment about the Devil in the Commons.”

Mostly, this election was about a large number of people who don’t like the way the country is drifting, and realized that Clinton was going to continue the process, or make it worse.

Time will tell what Trump does as POTUS. I suspect he’ll be a lot less awful than people think — and he has a Republican Congress that may curb any serious excesses. We’ll see.

This was a victory in my mind for reasons having nothing to do with any quality of Trump’s character, or with any specific thing Trump might accomplish. This was a victory because it stopped all of the things that Hillary would have accomplished, especially with the Senate and House that we would have had with a Hillary victory.

As I said last night – here’s to our new president Donald Trump and his running mate, Deadlock!

As far as I’m concerned, if we spend the next four years simply watching Trump’s initiatives being defeated, we’ve won big. We won’t have had to watch Hillary’s initiatives being enacted.

It’s been fun, here in ultra-liberal Minnesota, walking around and watching the stunned, downcast, grieving city-resident progressives trying to console each other. The challenge is in not smiling at it all – I sense that triggers are very lightly set. All in all, it’s like attending the funeral of someone you hated – you know it’s impolite, but you keep getting an urge to break into song.

Scott Adams is just about the only person of prominence (broadly speaking!) who recognized Trump’s qualities a year ago and has been consistently correct in his observations. So I think his ideas on the future of a Trump presidency are worthy of serious consideration. He’s almost certainly far closer to the mark than Eliezer Yudkowsky.

As to a presidential pardon for the Clintons, Mr Ed is correct that it would only apply to federal crimes, and only to those which have already been committed (there’s no such thing as “forward pardon”). Of course, that would probably be enough; Hillary has now lost whatever power she once had or hoped to have, so her ability to continue to commit crimes of the sort she has previously done would seem to be pretty close to non-existent. And if she knocks over a convenience store No one’s going to care if she’s prosecuted for it!

Any pardon would have to be reasonably circumscribed; it couldn’t be entirely open ended (I don’t think, anyway). When Ford pardoned Nixon, it was specifically for “all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969 through August 9, 1974.” In other words, during his term in office. (Here’s the full text of the pardon proclamation.) Hillary’s (and Bill’s) crimes go back a long way, and reach into a lot of areas, and I have difficulty believing that even Obama would attempt to pardon all of them.

In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if he didn’t pardon her (them) for anything. After all, she has presided over the complete repudiation of his entire 8 years, and will probably be responsible (at least, in his mind) for what appears to be the inevitable destruction of his “legacy”. And given that he has a deep personal dislike for her, the one small joy he might be able to salvage from this disaster would be to see her left twisting in the wind. One can only hope.

I hate myself when I do this (and twice in a single thread too!), but: what Kim said.

It’s been fun, here in ultra-liberal Minnesota, walking around and watching the stunned, downcast, grieving city-resident progressives trying to console each other. The challenge is in not smiling at it all – I sense that triggers are very lightly set. All in all, it’s like attending the funeral of someone you hated – you know it’s impolite, but you keep getting an urge to break into song.

The Clintons moved $1.8 Billion to a Gulf State bank (I can’t remember if it was a Dubai or a Bahrain) bank about a month ago.

That would be a nice crash cushion if they have to get out of Dodge in a hurry.

My opinion is still that the Republican party is nominally “right wing” only because it isn’t as left wing as the Democrats but it is still of a left persuasion. Trump can try to change things but he’s up against the lefties in his own party as well as the Democrats plus the immense inertia of the establishment (or as one commentator said, the Sir Humphreys of the American system).

In short, although the natural reaction is “NOW we can implement all these ideas/policies/actions” in reality, I believe that not a lot will get done.

IF (and it is a VERY big, gold plated, 100% vitamin enriched, steroid boosted if) he gets a second term with a greater majority AND the newly elected senate etc. are of a similar mindset to him, only then will he be able to implement any significant change.

“In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if he didn’t pardon her (them) for anything.”

I’m thinking that there’s a good chance that Trump will pardon her, at least for the e-mail problem.

That would be a great first step if he sees a responsibility to try to unify the country after a very divisive campaign. Were he to announce her pardon with the explanation that he saw no reason to prolong the pain and that we should simply learn from the experience, he’d go a long way towards stifling some of the intense hatred he’s going to attract from the left.

And I think he values the left’s opinion of him more than he values the opinion of the right. He is, after all, a confirmed life-long Democrat.

Brexit and Trump have made it a tough year for the left-liberal elite. But if they want to understand what’s happening to them they should look back to the satire boom of the early 1960s. Back then the British establishment consisted of frightfully posh chaps who had all come through the same few schools and the same few universities. They had the same accents, the same manners and the same opinions and they looked down on anyone who was not like them. This made them prone to complacency and group-think.

But their basic assumptions about the world had been formed in the orderly pre-WWII era of empire and class deference. They couldn’t adapt to the dynamic, dangerous and sometimes chaotic new age of superpowers, nuclear bombs and mini-skirts. The more they struggled the more they became a target for ridicule, which then hardened into contempt. Their moral and intellectual authority was steadily eroded until it collapsed entirely. They were eventually replaced by a new establishment that is now facing a similar crisis of legitimacy because its assumptions are at odds with current realities.

But this time around the mockery does not come from a handful of television satirists but from millions of citizens who can go online and tell the whole world just what is wrong with the fools in power, and that makes it all the more powerful. It’s not just one boy saying that the emperor has no clothes but the whole crowd.

Just as an example, here are a couple of comments recently seen from local Republicans:

“Our prayers are answered! The Supreme Court was saved! Our Republic survived, freedom for the people, NOT government rule!”

“So happy that God is showing mercy to our land. Let us thank Him.”

It’s not the religious language as such that I find creepy about this. It’s the juxtaposition of religion and politics that worries me. When you combine that with Trump’s political tone (which reminds me an awful lot of early 20th century progressives like Teddy Roosevelt), I start to get a distinct messianic cult vibe from the whole thing. I start to feel like massive government intervention in every aspect of life is going to be foisted on us, and people who talk about “freedom for the people, NOT government rule” will be glorifying it and defending it for the next 80 years because “he saved us.”

While pollsters in the U.S. ask about the ” on track” or “direction” of the country, the real issues seem to lie in where we have come, and what we have gotten to, over the past 16 years. So, it may not be the “direction” so much as where we have wound up, why and who done it.

That 16 year cycle is about the same as that which preceded Reagan in 1981 (1965-1981) the Great Society Epic (still being digested). However:

Though it requires some temerity to challenge the premise underlying a concept of constraining the Executive Office, still, that premise seems to ignore a basic factor of what the Res Publica has become, and in that transition (and transformation) the powers necessary (if not constitutionally proper) for the functions of the Executive Office.

The populace, through their electorates, have determined their “wants”** for a multi-functional central government. Views of chronologies may differ, but the trends probably can be traced back to around 1835, and certainly to the establishment of the Department of Agriculture in 1862 (as something “the people” needed). The historical results are with us today as a central government that has multiple functions, requiring Multiple Executive Functions that exceed the capacity of an individual (a fact often denied by office seekers). This is a form of Oakeshott’s “ Purposive Government;” an instrumentality to attain objectives. That has become the Res of our Publica.

** A 500+ page text could be compiled on the descriptions and
developments of those “wants.”

As a result, Article II of the Constitution has become incomplete to provide for a Multifunctional Executive Office. If we are to continue to have a multifunctional central government (is there any indication we will not?), the powers in that office must be made precise to the tasks, which could (probably does) call for a change in the constitutional structure of the office. There will be continuing misfunctions and malfunctions under the present order.

Whilst these conditions might be initially addressed by the manner in which the legislature provides for the Executive Departments, a precise allocation of executive powers could be distributed, and that of the popularly elected President in the overall Executive functions, could be realigned to issues of vetoes and other limitations (or accountability) of the heads of Executive Departments. Yet, the powers necessary cannot be constrained, they must lie somewhere, and the legislators have abandoned many of theirs.

A basic first step would not rely on some constraint of the powers of the President in the Executive Functions, but, would establish a more precise distribution of the powers for the Executive Function. Watch for it in the reactions of legislators “working with” this new source of a Chief Executive. .

The ideal is a government of limited functions. But, that just ain’t gonna happen until the coming fiscal crisis arrives.

The points about Hillary and a potential pardon are interesting. If I was Obama and felt under some pressure to pardon Hillary, but not much, then I would only include actions related to her role as his Secretary of State (so Benghazi and the email debacle).

That would still leave her up against the wall with charges of influence peddling over the Clinton Foundation and it would be nice to use RICO to get all of the Clinton crime family in orange jump suits, plus those involved in supporting the regime like Huma Abedin (although hopefully she sees sense and turns states witness).

As the saying goes “Rattlesnakes don’t commit suicide”.

Hillary has jumped her last hurdle and missed. There is nothing that she can do to protect herself from those that she has harmed or threatened and are still in a position to take revenge.

A lot of the local Republicans I’ve worked with before to further the cause of Liberty have gone glassy-eyed over Trump though. When he went out and defended maternity leave or the Kelo decision, they had all sorts of justifications and dodges. They just don’t want to see him as a bad guy. Maybe that’s just because they were so horrified by Clinton that they were hoping for a savior. I don’t know. But then, isn’t that how dictatorships get started?

I suspect that there is something much less frightful at play: the American tendency to see the world in black and white, good and evil, rather than accepting uncertainty and choosing the probably-but-not-certainly lesser evil. Obviously not all Americans show this tendency, in fact not even the majority, and plenty of people abroad do: i call it an American tendency because i suspect that Charles Sanders Peirce is to blame, for his essay The Fixation of Belief.

People who have this tendency end up with an unpleasant choice: either let Hitlery get away with crime and enable her to wreck the country, or rationalize that Trump is a Savior.

Patrick, I’m only suggesting that the current version of the establishment is collapsing. But as long as we have a powerful central government and a large permanent bureaucracy (on both sides of the Atlantic) the collapse of one form of the establishment will just create a power vacuum that somebody else will soon fill. That might still be beneficial if it results in the replacement of people who can’t seriously address the problems of today with people who can. But the final and permanent collapse of the establishment will only occur with the abolition of the institutions that make its existence possible, so it’s not likely to happen anytime soon.

Patrick, I’m only suggesting that the current version of the establishment is collapsing. But as long as we have a powerful central government and a large permanent bureaucracy (on both sides of the Atlantic) the collapse of one form of the establishment will just create a power vacuum that somebody else will soon fill. That might still be beneficial if it results in the replacement of people who can’t seriously address the problems of today with people who can. But the final and permanent collapse of the establishment will only occur with the abolition of the institutions that make its existence possible, so it’s not likely to happen anytime soon.

Has there ever been a country in all of human history without an establishment for more than a few years?

That’s a valuable insight. The black and white characterization is what frustrates me–especially given Trump’s on-again off-again statist rhetoric and seemingly authoritarian traits.

I do understand and sympathize with how much people dislike Hillary Clinton though. After hearing for years how smart and accomplished she is, when she’s anything but, it’s nice to see the fawning media hacks take it on the chin.

For me, the ideal is for everything to be handled by civil society and for the state to wither away and die. That will never actually happen but it’s an ideal to strive for.

The best indicator I can think of that we are moving toward this goal is an attitude of ambivalence toward the state. If people look more to their family, friends, and neighbors for solutions to life’s problems, and stop reflexively looking to politicians and state institutions, we would be well on our way to the abolishment of these fake elites. We would still have elites but they would be real elites—people who are respected for their actual skills and contributions to their fellow man. And I can happily live with those elites.

Has there ever been a country in all of human history without an establishment for more than a few years?

I can’t think of one right now. There are often periods of social change in which ownership of the establishment position is contested so that nobody can fully exercise that power for a few years. But it is only completely absent in a highly decentralized society in which no single group can control the culture or dominate public discourse. This is something that belongs to the realm of libertarian ideals but is rather harder to find in actual human history. I’m not saying that it’s impossible or that it has never happened, but I am agreeing that it is not common at all. But in the short term the most urgent concern should be to replace the current leftist establishment with something less delusional, if nothing else. An establishment that loathes its own country is a clear and present danger to everyone else who lives in it.

Off topic, but I want to give a nod in the direction of rfichoke’s handle. Unlike, I suspect, many here (but not all – NickM and Dale Amon spring to mind) I know what an RFI choke does and, as it happens, have several 1950s Miller ones in my stash of ancient components that I might need one day. They were designed to suppress RFI from the high tension Neon signs that you found outside liquor stores and the like.

Back on topic, I have been somewhat amused by all the calls for assassination from leftists. Don’t those idiots realise that we have all the guns?

As for this Frankfurt School of Marxism stuff about “race”, “gender” (and on and on).

It is a bore. It is a crushing bore. It turns people off. Mrs Clinton and her supporters could not open their mouths without talking about “glass ceilings”, “first women President” and all this Frankfurt School of Marxism P.C. stuff. They should have talked about how they would make the economy stronger – not all this P.C. “Critical Theory” stuff about “race”, “gender”, “sexual orientation” and so on.

I’ve also famously predicted that the theory of evolution will be debunked in my lifetime. […]

…you are probably thinking that my prediction has nearly zero chance of being right. I’ll let you in on an industry secret: You’re correct. You know all of those books on the market that predict various economic bubbles, social upheavals, and disasters of all kinds? Most of those authors don’t believe their predictions are likely to pan out. They’re making calculated bets that in the unlikely event they guessed right, they will become famous. That’s worth a fortune in future speaking gigs and book deals.

My contrarian prediction about evolution being debunked in my lifetime was the same sort of bet. It’s unlikely that I’ll be right. But if I get lucky, I’ll be the one person who predicted it.

‘llamas -correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t Harry Reid change the rules so that now it only takes 60 senators to beat a filibuster? That means Trump only needs to pull over 9 Democrats.”

Yes – but think about it for a minute. Trump not only needs to get 9 Democrats on-side (a virtual impossibility by itself) but he also needs to keep all 51 Republicans on-side as well, even if there is no filibuster. Given the RINO squishiness that the Republicans in both House and Senate have displayed the last 4 years, that may be an impossible hill to climb for President Trump for all but most inoffensive, middle-of-the-road judicial nominees. He could not get a Scalia or a Thomas confirmed today – and they both are (were) too statist for my taste, far too weak on First, Second, Fourth and Fifth Amendment issues. The best he will be able to get are plain-vanilla candidates who will be far too deferential to state powers, far too weak on individual liberties.

“Sam, FWIW so far the reported turnout rates seem to be similar to those of 2012 – both being lower than those of 2008 by some 10% or so.”

Well, in that case my comment wasn’t (quite) as embarrassing as I thought. Clearly whatever collapse there was in the Democrat vote was mirrored by a rise in the Republican, but collapse there still was.

“My contrarian prediction about evolution being debunked in my lifetime was the same sort of bet. It’s unlikely that I’ll be right. But if I get lucky, I’ll be the one person who predicted it.”

Adams has been reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb, then. That’s basically the whole of The Black Swan and Fooled by Randomness boiled down to two paragraphs.

@rfichoke
> The best indicator I can think of that we are moving toward this goal is an attitude of ambivalence toward the state.

I agree, unfortunately “the state” does not. It is constantly forcing its way into private discussions and arrangements through regulation, stupid laws and perhaps most importantly draining the public of the resources to look to themselves.

The last thing the state wants is to be bypassed, to be irrelevant. And so they insist on being relevant.

Two examples:

1. John and Dave want to get married. Good news, the state gets out the way and let’s them. Now they want a wedding cake. Felicia the Fundamentalist Baker says her religious beliefs prevent her from participating. What is the logical thing for John and Dave? Go across the street where Anna Justwantsyermoney will happily bake a rainbow cake. Actual solution? The state gets involved and does horrible things. Reasonable judge? “Go away and stop wasting my time”. However, the state says “having such bigots existing in the world has to be fixed — send them to jail and destroy their business.”

2. I am happy to make arrangements for my own healthcare. Unfortunately the state doesn’t agree, so because they don’t like my choices they fine me draining my resources to provide for myself. Then they force me to choose from a plan that they approve of including providing me with estrogen pills and the option to have my pee pee chopped off. These extra services are so expensive I need a subsidy, which the government gladly provides, and then tells me I have to stop eating McDonalds because, you know, they pay for my healthcare.

Were it possible to ignore them! At least with the Mafia if you pay them their tribute on time they leave you the hell alone.

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

— C.S. Lewis

Sam Duncan – I haven’t read Taleb, are you saying that Taleb makes the same sort of bets or that his thesis is “Someone, somewhere, will get it right, and they’ll look like a genius, but it’s just the law of averages”?

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